Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome everyone back for this term. A number of Members have raised the issue of health and it is an important issue for discussion. While there are difficulties in certain areas, Members should also acknowledge and check out an interesting report that has just been published in the medical journal, The Lancet. Ireland is ranked 13th out of 188 countries with regard to the United Nations development goals on health. There is much adverse coverage of the health services, which is having an effect on people who work in those services.More people than ever are out of work in the health service because of stress and much of that is generated by poor media coverage. In the past week, one newspaper carried an article about an alleged rape and the same article described complaints to the Medical Council. There is a big difference between that criminal offence and complaints to the Medical Council and it is wrong that they were tied in one article. That is not helpful to the medical services.

I agree with Senator Devine on the nursing issue. It is important and can easily be resolved. I fully support what she said about nurses where that difference has arisen, and it is not that costly to resolve it. Senator Buttimer and I attended a meeting with the management of Cork University Hospital and of 50 nurses who graduated this year in Cork, 48 are now employed in Cork University Hospital. That is the change we need to get. We still need to bring many people into the service. I agree that we need to remove the dependence on agencies to provide nursing staff. The sooner we do that, the better. We need to make sure it is attractive for nurses to stay here to work. We provide them with an excellent education and people here should benefit from that education. The Minister needs to take that on board and I ask the Leader to take it up with him at the earliest possible date to resolve the issue in respect of the nurses.